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Hola! Sorry its been a while, here is what we´ve been up to for the last few weeks! :-)
We finished our stay in La Paz with a visit back to Lake Titicaca and a stay on Isla del Sol, which was absolutely amazing!, with breathtaking views, lots of sun and a nice walk across the island. Then it was back to La Paz and a bus to Cochabamba in preperation for The Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Destruction of Mother Earth. Cochabamba was an interesting little Bolivian city with some suprisingly wealthy areas and others much less so. The conference lasted 4 days and was amazing to be a part of, although it was tricky at times as we didn´t really understand everything that was going on! However we felt very lucky to be there, learnt alot and met lots of interesting people. We also got to see the Bolivian president and the indigenous celebrations which involved lots of panpiping and dancing with big hats! In other news, we found a restaurant which did one of the best desserts ever, so if you´re ever in Cochabamba, head to Casa Blanca for a monte bianco. YUM! (we had 4..)
After a very bumpy night bus to Sucre, we found ourselves a lovely little hostel called Wasi Masi. The owners were lovely and helped us organise volunteering at an orphanage (see pictures of cute babies!, we wanted to adopt little Nicole) and some Spanish lessons with a very helpful teacher called Issac, for the week (neeearly fluent...). Sucre is possibly one of the prettiest cities in Bolivia, and it was so nice we didn´t want to leave. While we were there we also had some nice little trips including a visit to Las Siete Cascadas, which involved lots of rock climbing that we were NOT prepared for.. hence quite a few bumps and bruises at the end of the day! A trip to the market of Tarabuco was fun, and we managed to haggle ourselves a few bargains, and saw an art gallery in a mud hut too which was different!
After Sucre we stopped off at Potosi, a very depressing mining town. We chose not to visit the mines as it seems wrong to make a tourist attraction of horrific working conditions which people are still subjected to. However we did get to see some explosions as there was a protest going on whilst we were there..nice and scary! Next was a horrible journey to Uyuni- hot, smelly, and uncomfortable damp seats.. for 10 hours..jealous?! Arriving in Uyuni we booked a 3-day tour of the salt flats and went to get pizza with some friends we made on the bus. The next day began with us meeting Kamiko and Marie and going to see the dazzlingly white salt flats, which were amazing! Another highlight was seeing the worlds largest llama crafted out of salt, oh yes! Then we stopped to pick up the rest of our group, Sarah and Livio, both from Paris. We saw the random cactus island in the middle of the salt desert and then headed to our not so lovely hostel for the night in San Juan. Very scary, no electricity, no other people infact!, and were deeply worried by the fact that our driver spent the whole night with his head in the bonet of our car, and wheeling wheels in and out of the kitchen, ha! We survived the night and spent the next day driving to various lakes and saw a rock that looked like a tree- super! That night was spent playing a few drinking games which introduced us to American Sarah and two french girls, called Sophie and Fanny :-) The next morning we woke up at half 4, and headed for the geysers in the freeeezing cold, brrrrr! We also stopped at some hot springs but couldn´t bring ourselves to go in, as we were still thawing from the night before!, and preferred the look of the pancakes with dulche de leche, which we are slowly acquiring an addiction to. We were dropped at the border to Chile and said goodbye to our group, and happily said goodbye to the awful 4x4! (all in all we think the tires were changed about 5 times, and there was only one spare.. you work it out!)
Yesterday we arrived in San Pedro, our first taste of Chile! Its soooo pretty!, and strange how different it is to Bolivia whilst only being a few miles away. San Pedro is a small and very relaxing little town, catering entirely for tourists! We´re still trying to get the hang of Chilean currency as it is in 10s of 1000s!, but have booked ourselves on a star gazing tour tonight which we´re very excited about, -the stars out here are insane! We´re also hoping to try our hand at some sandboarding tomorrow, we´ll let you know how that goes in the next update. :-)
Planning on heading to Santiago and Valparaiso over the next few weeks before we cross over to Argentina, woop!
Saw the election results and are glad not to be in the UK at the moment as it all sounds a bit mental! So now we shall go and relax in the sunshine, practise some Spanish, and prepare ourselves for another dulche de leche delicacy. Tehe!
Lots of love to all, big Chilean hugs! xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(ps, we are slowly adding more pictures, enjoy!)
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